WEBVTT - 58. the right is obsessed with "logic" 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:01.520 No, no, no. I have to go see my grandmother. 0:00:01.540 --> 0:00:07.670 Is she dying? No. Elon Musk stated that empathy is 0:00:07.710 --> 0:00:11.670 the fundamental weakness of Western society. There's this growing rhetoric 0:00:11.990 --> 0:00:16.419 in certain circles online which prioritizes head over heart thinking, 0:00:16.500 --> 0:00:21.099 rationality over empathy, logic over sensitivity. In a sense, looking 0:00:21.140 --> 0:00:22.700 at the state of the world and the history of 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:25.690 the kind of rhetoric that's been embedded in Western society 0:00:25.790 --> 0:00:28.690 for at least 30, 40 years, is it really a 0:00:28.730 --> 0:00:31.650 surprise that people are acting like they don't shouldn't owe 0:00:31.690 --> 0:00:34.769 anyone anything, that their vote shouldn't count for someone else, 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:38.540 that they should fundamentally only focus on themselves. And again, 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:41.000 I'm not defending it, but I do think that once 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:43.729 we trace back where it might come from, we create 0:00:43.790 --> 0:00:46.400 a picture that kind of starts to make sense. I 0:00:46.420 --> 0:00:49.300 want to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the 0:00:49.340 --> 0:00:52.920 land on which I'm recording this podcast today, the Wurundjeri 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:56.300 Woiwurrung people of the Kulin Nation, and extend my respect 0:00:56.340 --> 0:01:00.160 to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander listeners tuning in 0:01:00.340 --> 0:01:11.480 today as well. Sovereignty was never ceded. Hello beautiful people, 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:14.540 welcome back to another episode of From the Diving Board 0:01:14.580 --> 0:01:16.840 with me, Charlie Chatz. I am so happy to have 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:18.779 you back and also I just want to say welcome 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:20.400 to all the new people. Thank you so much for 0:01:20.459 --> 0:01:22.770 tuning in to the last video I did all about 0:01:22.940 --> 0:01:26.369 Susan Sontag's notes on camp, a comparison of the kinda 0:01:26.390 --> 0:01:28.770 chic trend. It was so much fun to read all 0:01:28.790 --> 0:01:31.410 of your comments and insights. I had a lot of fun. 0:01:31.590 --> 0:01:33.150 I had a lot of fun making the video. I 0:01:33.190 --> 0:01:35.490 had a lot of fun reading your comments. I love 0:01:35.510 --> 0:01:38.090 when we get into the weeds of conversations like that 0:01:38.170 --> 0:01:40.810 because yes, it is tongue in cheek, but yes, we 0:01:40.890 --> 0:01:44.300 also can have a nuanced discussion about it. And I 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:46.039 feel like you guys just get that. You know what 0:01:46.060 --> 0:01:49.260 I mean? So I've also taken notes from some of 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:51.910 the comments. I was too close to the microphone. I'm 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:55.210 so sorry. Today's video is based on an observation I've noticed, 0:01:55.290 --> 0:01:59.230 particularly when I receive hate. And look, I hate to 0:01:59.270 --> 0:02:01.770 say I've been inspired by the hate comments, but well, 0:02:02.030 --> 0:02:04.210 let me explain. Let me explain. I really want to 0:02:04.230 --> 0:02:06.430 talk about this debate, this seemingly debate that's come out 0:02:06.450 --> 0:02:08.230 of nowhere that no one believes in except for the 0:02:08.270 --> 0:02:11.560 people that are presenting the debate. And that is that 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:16.079 head versus heart thinking is essentially the crux of right 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:19.940 versus left thinking. And as you might expect, I could 0:02:19.980 --> 0:02:23.860 not think this is more further than the truth. But 0:02:23.900 --> 0:02:26.640 I also think we need to talk about this with 0:02:26.660 --> 0:02:30.210 a really nuanced and compassionate understanding if we can. And 0:02:30.230 --> 0:02:32.669 I'm really excited to present some of the information that 0:02:32.710 --> 0:02:36.060 I've found in relation to this. So let's get into it. 0:02:36.090 --> 0:02:40.140 There's this growing rhetoric in certain circles online, which prioritizes 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:45.820 Head over heart thinking. Rationality over empathy. Logic over sensitivity. 0:02:45.860 --> 0:02:49.899 The idea essentially is as follows. People who make political 0:02:49.940 --> 0:02:55.049 decisions based on empathy are ultimately betraying their own interests 0:02:55.270 --> 0:02:59.450 and therefore... the interests of people like them. Usually this 0:02:59.550 --> 0:03:05.060 critique in particular is expressed specifically where empathy is towards 0:03:05.220 --> 0:03:11.100 a minoritized group like immigrants, BIPOC people, LGBTQIA plus people. 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:14.390 And it's expressed almost as if the person who's voting 0:03:14.490 --> 0:03:19.210 on behalf of these minoritized groups is betraying their own interests. 0:03:19.730 --> 0:03:22.510 is voting for a group of people that don't represent 0:03:22.750 --> 0:03:27.919 them and is somehow then undermining democracy. Rationality and logic 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:31.500 are often presented in these conversations as superior to empathy, 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:36.840 which is sometimes associated with stupidity or dim-wittedness or a 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:41.290 fundamental lack of IQ or intelligence. There's a real elitist 0:03:41.350 --> 0:03:43.470 thing going on, which is ironic considering a lot of 0:03:43.490 --> 0:03:47.730 these people are also highly anti-intellectual in their pursuits as well. 0:03:48.620 --> 0:03:52.360 But again, we're getting ahead of ourselves. But I actually 0:03:52.420 --> 0:03:54.840 think a lot of these people who are even themselves 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:58.940 presenting head versus heart thinking as the crux of left 0:03:59.030 --> 0:04:03.670 versus right thinking are actually fundamentally undermining and leaving out 0:04:03.690 --> 0:04:06.750 a key element of their own belief system. Because it's 0:04:06.930 --> 0:04:10.370 often not that these people are not empathetic. they're just 0:04:10.410 --> 0:04:14.050 a lot more empathetic to people that look, sound and 0:04:14.150 --> 0:04:16.860 seem more like them. In today's episode, I'm not going 0:04:16.890 --> 0:04:18.920 to try and argue the value of empathy. I think 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:21.239 if you're interested in the kind of content I promote, 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:24.360 I hope that you're here because you actually respect the 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:27.540 value of empathy and you have empathy and you know 0:04:27.580 --> 0:04:29.820 what that means. And if you don't, I hope that 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:32.640 you're here to learn because you see the value in empathy. 0:04:33.020 --> 0:04:35.080 So I really just don't think I need to like 0:04:35.500 --> 0:04:37.440 dumb this down for you guys. I feel like that 0:04:37.460 --> 0:04:40.330 would literally be like almost I don't know. I feel 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:42.280 like it would be rude to you to give you 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:45.360 like an analysis of why empathy is good. But instead, 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:48.740 I kind of want to present and explore how this 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.229 argument came to be and dare I say, extend some 0:04:52.290 --> 0:04:55.599 empathy to those who have this belief system. So that 0:04:55.700 --> 0:04:58.120 when we're faced with these kinds of comments, we actually 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:01.170 kind of can see where they're coming from. It's important 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:04.010 for us to understand what's going on on the other side. 0:05:04.430 --> 0:05:06.669 In saying that I wasn't going to dumb this down, 0:05:06.710 --> 0:05:10.790 I have listed the definition of empathy and I'm going 0:05:10.810 --> 0:05:12.190 to keep it in because I know that you guys 0:05:12.310 --> 0:05:15.570 know it, but I didn't obviously know the specific definition 0:05:15.610 --> 0:05:19.290 of empathy as per the dictionary. So I'm going to 0:05:19.310 --> 0:05:22.020 read it to you because I think it's quite interesting. 0:05:22.060 --> 0:05:25.240 So Empathy is generally understood as the ability to step 0:05:25.339 --> 0:05:28.380 into someone else's shoes and imagine how they might feel 0:05:28.779 --> 0:05:32.540 in a given situation. Officially, the Cambridge dictionary defines empathy 0:05:32.820 --> 0:05:36.179 as the ability to share someone else's feelings or experiences 0:05:36.300 --> 0:05:38.479 by imagining what it would be like to be in 0:05:38.540 --> 0:05:43.730 that person's situation. And this is as distinct from sympathy, 0:05:44.110 --> 0:05:46.870 which is defined in the same Cambridge dictionary as an 0:05:46.930 --> 0:05:51.089 expression of understanding and care for someone else's suffering. And 0:05:51.290 --> 0:05:54.909 really fascinatingly, the reason we as human beings even have 0:05:55.029 --> 0:05:58.070 empathy or sympathy in the first place is evolutionary. It 0:05:58.110 --> 0:06:01.860 helped people to work together, to gather food and resources, 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:04.920 and also to raise children in a caring environment and 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:08.620 compassionate way. Without empathy, we may not care for our 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:10.960 children in the ways that they need for such an 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:15.030 extended period of time, because human children are so dependent 0:06:15.150 --> 0:06:17.969 on adults for a far longer period for the most 0:06:18.010 --> 0:06:22.590 part than any other animal. According to researcher Patricia Churchland, 0:06:22.850 --> 0:06:27.220 neural evolution inclined humans to strive not only for self-preservation, 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:31.400 but for the well-being of others, first offspring, then mates, kin, 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:37.040 and finally strangers. She lists that hormones like oxytocin quite 0:06:37.100 --> 0:06:40.700 literally create those feelings of trust and bonding, which then 0:06:40.940 --> 0:06:46.060 also in turn reduces defensive behaviors like fighting or fleeing. 0:06:46.250 --> 0:06:50.390 From a very basic level, empathy is quite literally essential 0:06:50.430 --> 0:06:53.050 for our survival. And dare I say it would even 0:06:53.110 --> 0:06:57.070 be illogical not to use your weapon against you, those 0:06:57.730 --> 0:07:01.600 rationality people, to suggest that humans don't need it. But 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:05.710 the argument for those who do uphold this idea that 0:07:05.810 --> 0:07:09.270 rationality is more important than empathy at the moment is 0:07:09.550 --> 0:07:13.810 more along these lines, as I've gathered. With the establishment 0:07:13.870 --> 0:07:17.410 of societies and law and order that makes us behave 0:07:17.470 --> 0:07:20.940 in certain ways and also economic growth, which means that 0:07:20.950 --> 0:07:25.820 we aren't so reliant on working together to find food, hunt, gather, etc. 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:30.340 We don't really need anything. as much care or nurturing 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:33.870 empathy in a sense to work together anymore because we 0:07:33.940 --> 0:07:37.410 can ultimately achieve all the goals to meet all of 0:07:37.490 --> 0:07:41.290 our basic needs live a long life, work hard, in 0:07:41.330 --> 0:07:45.060 a sense, on our own. Modern life, as the argument goes, 0:07:45.270 --> 0:07:48.700 enables us to do this without as much support or 0:07:48.980 --> 0:07:52.240 as much reliance on other people within our community, and 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:56.020 therefore we simply don't need as much empathy to those 0:07:56.080 --> 0:08:00.140 people around us. Again, I fundamentally disagree with this position. 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:05.580 It's almost as if this has caused the loneliness epidemic, but... 0:08:05.910 --> 0:08:08.270 I think it's important to put that there because I 0:08:08.290 --> 0:08:11.490 can guarantee that forms at least part of what this 0:08:11.710 --> 0:08:15.850 argument stems from. Under a capitalist society, when almost everything 0:08:15.910 --> 0:08:19.380 is privatized, not everyone does have access to basic needs 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:23.560 on their own. Not everyone can achieve things just as 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.280 easily as it was before. And in a sense, we 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:29.480 have to work very, very hard, very, very hard just 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:34.180 to reach our basic needs. Success under capitalism requires us 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:38.780 to think about ourselves and absorb that self-centered thinking because 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:43.069 competitive ideas and competition is seen as the thing that 0:08:43.140 --> 0:08:46.829 drives our own productivity. And I think for this reason... 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:50.260 To give the people that believe this some credit in 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:53.880 this idea, because I certainly agree that the capitalist system 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:58.540 has driven self-sufficiency and self-centeredness, it does create a system 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:01.840 of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even if you don't start out 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:05.480 believing that self-centered rhetoric is the only way to move forward, 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:08.260 when you see that everyone else is using that approach 0:09:08.300 --> 0:09:11.099 or relying on that approach... It's very easy to get 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:14.120 swept up and feel as though that's your only option. 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:17.180 And of course, this didn't come from nowhere. I've spoken 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:22.840 about them various times before. But the neoliberal original girl boss, 0:09:24.220 --> 0:09:27.940 Margaret Thatcher, and of course, Ronald Reagan, very much peddled 0:09:27.980 --> 0:09:31.500 this ideology when they set up their own neoliberal economic 0:09:31.590 --> 0:09:35.890 systems in the UK and in the US. in the 1980s. 0:09:36.130 --> 0:09:39.470 The answer to what was in the UK the winter 0:09:39.490 --> 0:09:43.680 of discontent and job loss and increasing inflation was to 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:46.540 do the exact opposite of what the then government was 0:09:46.580 --> 0:09:50.200 doing and that was the solution to deregulate everything. The 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.610 idea was if the barriers to entry to starting up 0:09:53.670 --> 0:09:57.910 new businesses and corporations were eliminated in their entirety then 0:09:57.950 --> 0:10:01.770 more and more people would engage in productive practices, start selling, 0:10:01.809 --> 0:10:05.710 start creating, start producing to drive that economy forward. back 0:10:05.929 --> 0:10:09.870 and bring the UK to a greater economic position in 0:10:09.910 --> 0:10:13.820 the global economy as well by improving their ability to 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:16.979 trade with other nations, with all of these new productive 0:10:17.059 --> 0:10:21.280 companies that would be rising up within the UK. Deregulating 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:27.270 though also meant cutting taxes, which meant defunding healthcare, defunding 0:10:27.370 --> 0:10:32.090 benefit schemes, defunding public housing, defunding all of the welfare 0:10:32.170 --> 0:10:35.290 payments and schemes that were set up after the Second 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.900 World War to rebuild the UK. This pattern was very, 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:43.160 very similarly seen in the US under Ronald Reagan's leadership. 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:46.720 And we then followed suit as well in Australia, following 0:10:46.860 --> 0:10:52.760 a very, very similar deregulation, neoliberal pattern. economic policy framework. 0:10:52.940 --> 0:10:54.679 And in fact, I think there's a bit of a 0:10:54.740 --> 0:10:58.680 comparison going on, possibly, with the winter of discontent in 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:02.059 the UK and what's happening here in Australia. Since the pandemic, 0:11:02.100 --> 0:11:05.340 we've had very high cost of living here and many, 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:07.780 many people are getting laid off. Housing prices are through 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:10.990 the roof. People are really, really struggling. So when Pauline Hanson, 0:11:11.070 --> 0:11:14.510 the leader of One Nation, our most far-right party here 0:11:14.570 --> 0:11:18.410 in Australia, has swept in saying she's going to deregulate, 0:11:18.510 --> 0:11:22.130 saying she's going to help the working Pauline, may. 0:11:22.050 --> 0:11:24.790 I invite you to the stage quickly, please? You might 0:11:24.850 --> 0:11:30.720 remember Elon Musk was given a big chainsaw to try 0:11:30.750 --> 0:11:35.040 and cut government tape and bureaucracies over in America. We 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:39.280 need more than one of these things. We need an 0:11:39.660 --> 0:11:45.020 orange bulldozer. Let's hear the noise. Grrrr. 0:11:47.100 --> 0:11:50.380 Saying she's going to get rid of all immigrants or 0:11:50.740 --> 0:11:54.650 all but 100,000 or 300,000 or she changes it literally 0:11:54.830 --> 0:11:58.110 every second week with what her policy actually is because 0:11:58.150 --> 0:12:01.390 she doesn't actually have a policy, guys. But what she's 0:12:01.490 --> 0:12:05.500 actually advocating for is a system that apparently is going 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:09.500 to make people more productive. She's blaming the current policies, 0:12:09.580 --> 0:12:12.380 the current government, for the reason that cost of living 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:14.850 is so high, for the reason that so many people 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:18.050 are suffering right now. She's blaming immigration for this as well. 0:12:18.190 --> 0:12:21.929 When really, it's the fact that neoliberal economic policies which 0:12:21.970 --> 0:12:25.290 have existed in this country for over 30 years... mean 0:12:25.330 --> 0:12:28.790 that there are hundreds of corporations which haven't paid a 0:12:28.890 --> 0:12:32.059 single dollar in tax, or at least pay a very, 0:12:32.380 --> 0:12:36.100 very small proportion of what they should owe the government. 0:12:36.300 --> 0:12:39.179 In fact, if we taxed these corporations, then we might 0:12:39.260 --> 0:12:42.679 actually see greater standards of living because more money could 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:45.600 go into welfare. Her solution is to cut it all. 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:48.780 That's absolutely fundamentally not going to do what it says 0:12:48.900 --> 0:12:50.800 on the tin. I'll be the first to say that 0:12:50.820 --> 0:12:53.819 the current government isn't doing enough to ensure that corporations 0:12:53.860 --> 0:12:56.870 are held accountable at all, but it's definitely not the 0:12:56.900 --> 0:13:00.209 solution to reverse what we have entirely. The reason I 0:13:00.250 --> 0:13:04.010 bring this all up is because this type of thinking 0:13:04.150 --> 0:13:09.410 has infiltrated into individual thinking. This idea that corporations should 0:13:09.450 --> 0:13:12.390 be free from regulation and should be able to do 0:13:12.429 --> 0:13:15.300 whatever they want and don't owe the government anything anything 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:18.590 is actually really similar to how we've started to view ourselves. 0:13:18.809 --> 0:13:20.410 If you think about it, when we compete in the 0:13:20.450 --> 0:13:22.910 job market to get a job, We are our own 0:13:22.990 --> 0:13:26.370 little brands, our own little corporations fighting each other, trying 0:13:26.450 --> 0:13:29.410 to stand out, trying to compete in a sea of 0:13:29.530 --> 0:13:32.290 people who want this so badly to pay their bills, 0:13:32.490 --> 0:13:37.120 indicating ourselves as having certain values and aligning ourselves with 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:40.000 corporate values to ensure that we get hired by that company, 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:43.059 writing our resumes in specific ways so that we get noticed. 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:45.280 I totally understand why we do this, but when that 0:13:45.340 --> 0:13:48.479 type of thinking starts to expand in every facet of 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.740 our lives... When we start really viewing ourselves as corporate 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:55.570 entities that don't need to be regulated, as individuals who 0:13:55.590 --> 0:13:58.630 should be able to do whatever we want, shouldn't be checked, 0:13:58.690 --> 0:14:02.190 shouldn't be accountable, shouldn't be taxed in a sense. We 0:14:02.210 --> 0:14:04.030 don't have to be villagers. We don't have to do 0:14:04.050 --> 0:14:06.550 the hard things to support those around us. We should 0:14:06.570 --> 0:14:10.980 just be able to grow. economically, financially, when we see 0:14:11.030 --> 0:14:15.280 how many people end up prioritizing their jobs for, again, 0:14:15.420 --> 0:14:18.240 very valid reasons to chase a certain lifestyle, to have 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.080 a certain amount of money to be able to do things. 0:14:21.220 --> 0:14:23.820 But ultimately, so many people do end up in the 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:26.620 situation where they've climbed that corporate ladder so much, they've 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:29.040 cut off so many people in their lives because they've 0:14:29.100 --> 0:14:32.390 dedicated so much to their job, dedicated so much to 0:14:32.430 --> 0:14:35.330 making a certain amount of money, that once they're there, 0:14:35.430 --> 0:14:37.930 they no longer have a community around them anyway to 0:14:37.970 --> 0:14:39.950 have fun with, to do all the things they wanted 0:14:39.990 --> 0:14:42.480 to do once they reached that certain point. I do 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:45.420 think there's a huge similarity between the ways that this 0:14:45.540 --> 0:14:50.640 corporation thinking, this deregulation thinking, and our individual thinking correlate, 0:14:50.700 --> 0:14:54.160 and I think that's not a coincidence. In fact, someone 0:14:54.180 --> 0:14:56.140 who talks about this a lot is Byung-Chul Han, and 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:58.990 I'm excited to read his book which is called Burnout Society, 0:14:59.130 --> 0:15:01.390 which I'm going to be doing a whole episode on 0:15:01.570 --> 0:15:03.729 once I do finally finish it, because I've read many 0:15:03.770 --> 0:15:06.370 things from him, excerpts and snippets, and I find his 0:15:06.410 --> 0:15:11.250 work so fascinating. He's a South Korean-German philosopher. Definitely recommend 0:15:11.370 --> 0:15:13.850 checking out his work. And so when there's a group 0:15:13.890 --> 0:15:16.980 of people saying that, you know, we shouldn't be empathetic, 0:15:17.060 --> 0:15:20.700 we shouldn't really use empathy to make our political decisions, 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:23.260 to vote certain people in. We shouldn't think about that. 0:15:23.300 --> 0:15:25.720 That's not our problem. In a sense, that's the way 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:28.680 we've been conditioned for a very, very long time. In 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:30.340 a sense, looking at the state of the world and 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:32.780 the history of the kind of rhetoric that's been embedded 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:36.420 in Western society for at least 30, 40 years, is 0:15:36.460 --> 0:15:39.060 it really a surprise that people are acting like they... 0:15:39.380 --> 0:15:42.390 shouldn't owe anyone anything, that their vote shouldn't count for 0:15:42.430 --> 0:15:46.250 someone else, that they should fundamentally only focus on themselves. 0:15:46.430 --> 0:15:48.650 And again, I'm not defending it, but I do think 0:15:48.730 --> 0:15:51.380 that once we trace back where it might come from, 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:54.250 we create a picture that kind of starts to make sense. 0:15:54.530 --> 0:15:57.360 Returning back to Elon Musk on Joe Rogan's podcast, one 0:15:57.380 --> 0:16:00.120 of the examples that he provided to defend his argument 0:16:00.180 --> 0:16:04.000 that empathy is the fundamental weakness of Western society was 0:16:04.060 --> 0:16:07.910 that migrants were taking away from healthcare of US citizens. 0:16:08.270 --> 0:16:11.690 But if we actually unpack this further... This makes fundamentally 0:16:11.730 --> 0:16:14.350 no sense considering he is a trillionaire. And so if 0:16:14.390 --> 0:16:17.650 his real concern was that everyone should have access to healthcare, 0:16:17.710 --> 0:16:20.630 I'm sure he could make that happen. Secondly, the privatization 0:16:20.650 --> 0:16:23.510 of the health industry is really the problem here. It's 0:16:23.570 --> 0:16:26.840 not migrants taking resources. It's not the fact that the 0:16:26.860 --> 0:16:30.460 population has grown. It's the fact that the system isn't 0:16:30.620 --> 0:16:35.480 accessible for a very, very vast number of the American population. 0:16:35.580 --> 0:16:37.500 In fact, I wanted to look at his wealth and Like, 0:16:37.500 --> 0:16:42.300 $ 1 trillion, that means he could technically provide 1 million 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:45.990 people with $ 1 million. Like, that is the scale of 0:16:46.030 --> 0:16:48.090 what we're looking at here. So for him to stand 0:16:48.190 --> 0:16:50.980 here and complain that a certain group of people are 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:55.890 taking away from others, hello! hello, look at how much 0:16:55.950 --> 0:16:58.510 you've taken away from others. Look at how much money 0:16:58.530 --> 0:17:01.270 you are hoarding there. And I say, look at how 0:17:01.330 --> 0:17:04.160 much you've taken away from others, because I can guarantee 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.159 that a lot of people in these positions of billionairedom, 0:17:07.380 --> 0:17:10.300 of billionairedom, that I don't think that's a word, but 0:17:10.340 --> 0:17:12.939 it is now, have made that money off of the 0:17:13.180 --> 0:17:17.439 underpayment of their star. And the most classic example is 0:17:17.540 --> 0:17:21.060 Jeff Bezos and the way he treats his Amazon workers 0:17:21.100 --> 0:17:25.510 who consistently try to advocate for better conditions, for unionizing. 0:17:25.890 --> 0:17:29.660 And he consistently rejects it. In a book by Paul Bloom, 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:32.159 which came out a few years ago now, he argues 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:36.460 that empathy should be minimized when making political decisions. But 0:17:36.590 --> 0:17:42.169 he doesn't say that conservatives have no empathy at all. Instead, 0:17:42.270 --> 0:17:45.190 he writes the following. While liberals tend to empathize with 0:17:45.290 --> 0:17:49.320 certain groups like immigrants, minority victims of police violence, and 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:53.830 pregnant women considering whether to have an abortion, conservatives happen 0:17:53.850 --> 0:17:58.790 to empathize more with individuals like business owners, police officers, 0:17:58.970 --> 0:18:02.230 and unborn children. fetuses. And I actually think he has 0:18:02.270 --> 0:18:05.490 a point here because it's not like this conservative right-wing 0:18:05.609 --> 0:18:08.750 ideology doesn't have empathy at all. In fact, a lot 0:18:08.790 --> 0:18:13.620 of their arguments are emotive arguments for the working class, 0:18:13.780 --> 0:18:18.820 for white women, for unborn fetuses, for these people that 0:18:18.900 --> 0:18:22.580 they speak about with such conviction and such emotion, but 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:25.950 at the expense of others. And I think what's really 0:18:25.990 --> 0:18:31.230 fascinating is that their empathy is confined while liberal as 0:18:31.330 --> 0:18:37.280 in progressive spaces typically have a more expansive empathy. And 0:18:37.380 --> 0:18:39.460 in a way you could argue, yes, that means that 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:43.200 those in those progressive spaces typically have more empathy than 0:18:43.260 --> 0:18:46.220 those in conservative spaces. I think the important thing here 0:18:46.260 --> 0:18:48.680 in this distinction to say the quiet part out loud 0:18:48.740 --> 0:18:52.690 is that the People that those in these more conservative, 0:18:52.820 --> 0:19:01.000 more far-right leaning spaces are feeling empathetic towards are typically white, able-bodied, 0:19:01.380 --> 0:19:06.010 straight people who uphold this nationalist vision of what fascist 0:19:06.070 --> 0:19:09.629 America would look like. And in a very, very similar way, 0:19:09.730 --> 0:19:14.280 Pauline Hanson is advocating for a monocultural society under this 0:19:14.580 --> 0:19:22.740 empathetic ideology that only extends to white colonial settler Australians. Like, ironically, 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:27.290 this culture that she's trying to create has never existed. 0:19:27.550 --> 0:19:29.850 Another interesting point that I wanted to raise in this 0:19:29.930 --> 0:19:32.970 was that I found some research reported on in The 0:19:33.030 --> 0:19:40.209 Conversation by Kyle Fiore-Law, Brendan Bo O'Connor, and Stelianos Siripoulos, 0:19:40.310 --> 0:19:43.800 who ended up finding that the head versus heart argument 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:48.790 is far too simple anyway. And they actually argue that 0:19:49.290 --> 0:19:53.580 empathy and reasoning aren't rivals. They work together. Each one 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:58.420 on its own predicts more generous, far-reaching acts of assistance. 0:19:58.830 --> 0:20:01.469 And when they operate side by side, people tend to 0:20:01.530 --> 0:20:04.790 help in the fairest ways, not favoring some over others 0:20:04.890 --> 0:20:07.909 and in ways that touch the most lives. And again, 0:20:08.010 --> 0:20:12.530 to quote them, they say, Many of today's most urgent problems, poverty, 0:20:12.650 --> 0:20:16.210 climate change, global health, depend on motivating people to care 0:20:16.270 --> 0:20:20.820 about strangers and to use limited resources effectively. Appeals to 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:24.340 empathy alone may inspire giving, but not necessarily the most 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:28.500 effective giving. Appeals to reason alone can leave people unmoved, 0:20:28.740 --> 0:20:32.159 as often facts and numbers don't stir anyone to care. 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:35.240 Our findings suggest that the most powerful approach may be 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:38.989 to pair empathy's motivation with reasoning's direction. And I mean, 0:20:39.010 --> 0:20:41.109 I don't think anyone's really arguing with that. You know 0:20:41.130 --> 0:20:44.129 what I mean? Like the only people who were arguing that, 0:20:44.310 --> 0:20:47.510 you know, for this head versus heart thinking were people 0:20:47.770 --> 0:20:51.280 on the, in these like regressive bubbles anyway. No one 0:20:51.340 --> 0:20:53.899 on the left, I really don't think anyone on the 0:20:53.940 --> 0:20:57.659 left is arguing for empathy as the sole driver of 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:01.139 progress and of how we should make decisions. Like I 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:06.010 do find it hilariously ironic sometimes because these problems are 0:21:06.300 --> 0:21:09.560 have just been completely concocted. But the next part of 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:11.600 this video, I'm going to be talking about some of 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:15.740 the work of Hannah Arendt, because this conversation did make 0:21:15.820 --> 0:21:19.700 me think of her phrase, the banality of evil. Hannah 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:22.950 Arendt is a Jewish woman, or was a Jewish woman, 0:21:23.070 --> 0:21:27.310 who wrote heavily about the Holocaust and the final solution, 0:21:27.550 --> 0:21:33.280 and reported famously on the Nuremberg Trials in the 1960s, 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:36.720 specifically the trial of Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann was one of 0:21:36.740 --> 0:21:40.810 the key political organizers and figures of the implementation of 0:21:40.990 --> 0:21:44.330 the final solution in Nazi Germany. And he was trialed 0:21:44.490 --> 0:21:49.119 in Israel in the early 1960s, which Arendt, reported on 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:51.860 for the New Yorker. To give some additional context, his 0:21:51.940 --> 0:21:56.899 trial resulted in his execution in 1962, having been found 0:21:57.000 --> 0:22:01.619 guilty of crimes against Jewish people in 1961. But Hannah 0:22:01.660 --> 0:22:06.740 Arendt's focus was on uncovering the mundaneness of evil, which 0:22:06.830 --> 0:22:09.590 of course is not in any way to minimize any 0:22:09.609 --> 0:22:12.429 of the atrocities that occurred during the Holocaust. But she 0:22:12.450 --> 0:22:16.750 was interested in the series of bureaucratic policy decisions which 0:22:16.850 --> 0:22:21.840 led to such a horrific, inhumane, unjust genocide. Her point 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:24.439 was to critique the lack of empathy that occurs in 0:22:24.500 --> 0:22:30.030 kind of everyday bureaucratic administrative decisions and behaviours, which is 0:22:30.170 --> 0:22:33.630 often because we conform to a system and we go 0:22:33.670 --> 0:22:37.040 with the flow and we're complicit in asking questions and 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:40.590 understanding what it is that we're creating, what it is 0:22:40.630 --> 0:22:43.590 that we're contributing to. And her focus was particularly looking 0:22:43.650 --> 0:22:47.850 at these bureaucratic systems under totalitarian rule where you can't 0:22:47.990 --> 0:22:53.080 really question authority and so you remain complicit in a system. Again, 0:22:53.420 --> 0:22:56.240 she was not in any way defending any of these actors, 0:22:56.300 --> 0:23:00.149 but instead she looking at the phenomenon from an almost philosophical, 0:23:00.290 --> 0:23:05.430 psychological and political theory perspective to see how humans behave 0:23:05.470 --> 0:23:09.260 in different contexts. And what she found was really, really 0:23:09.340 --> 0:23:14.560 revealing about the destructive and dangerous outcomes that occur when 0:23:14.600 --> 0:23:18.139 we toss empathy to one side and only focus on 0:23:18.160 --> 0:23:24.220 the sort of systems-based logic and rationality. Describing Eichmann, Arendt 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:27.399 said in her report, what he said was always the same, 0:23:27.700 --> 0:23:31.110 expressed in the same words. The longer one listened to him, 0:23:31.200 --> 0:23:34.369 the more obvious it became that his inability to speak 0:23:34.420 --> 0:23:38.430 was closely connected with an inability to think. Namely, to 0:23:38.490 --> 0:23:41.690 think from the standpoint of somebody else. And again, I 0:23:41.910 --> 0:23:45.390 bring this up because without empathy, we can easily fall 0:23:45.450 --> 0:23:49.120 into this logical movement. This movement that feels as though 0:23:49.140 --> 0:23:51.240 it's already dictated to us because we don't want to 0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:53.580 lose our jobs. So we logically do the things that 0:23:53.600 --> 0:23:56.850 are expected of us under certain rule. But don't question it. 0:23:57.440 --> 0:24:01.520 Empathy gives us those tools to question. Empathy makes us 0:24:01.580 --> 0:24:05.080